Let's be honest. To conduct a reference check that actually tells you something useful, you have to get beyond the softball questions and the candidate’s two best friends. It boils down to two things: asking behavioral questions that demand real stories and insisting on speaking with a candidate's former direct manager—not their favorite lunch buddy.
This simple shift changes the entire game. You go from a polite, box-ticking formality to a genuine intelligence-gathering mission.
I'll say what everyone's thinking. You’ve probably skipped a reference check or two, right? Most of the time, they feel like a bureaucratic charade that produces useless, glowing praise. It’s a polite dance we all participate in.
The candidate provides two glowing recommendations from past jobs, you ask questions a chatbot could answer, and everyone hangs up feeling like they’ve accomplished absolutely nothing. It's a colossal waste of everyone’s afternoon.
But here’s the kicker: that bad hire you accidentally onboard because you skipped the hard parts? They can torpedo your team’s morale, sink productivity, and quietly drain your resources for months before you even realize what's happening.
Getting it wrong is expensive. One poorly suited employee can cost an organization $15,000 or more when you factor in lost productivity and client dissatisfaction. If you dive deeper into why employment checks still matter, you'll see the financial stakes are just too high to just wing it.
The problem isn't the concept of reference checks; it's the lazy, old-school execution. This guide is for founders and hiring managers who are done with the fluff and ready for a process that protects their team and their bottom line.
We’re not here to check a box. We're on a mission to predict future performance. The goal is to get real, actionable intel, not a thumbs-up from a candidate's college roommate.
The traditional method is fundamentally broken. It’s built on the flawed assumption that a candidate will give you unbiased contacts and that those contacts will give you the unvarnished truth. Spoiler alert: they won’t. People often embellish on their resumes, and their hand-picked references are coached to back them up.
Let's look at how the old, broken process compares to a smarter approach.
| Outdated Method (The Charade) | Effective Method (The Intel-Gathering Mission) |
|---|---|
| Candidate provides 2-3 hand-picked contacts (often friends). | You request the contact info for their last two direct managers. Non-negotiable. |
| You ask generic questions like, "What are their strengths?" | You ask behavioral questions: "Tell me about a time they disagreed with you. How did they handle it?" |
| The goal is to simply confirm employment dates and titles. | The goal is to uncover patterns of behavior and predict future performance. |
| The conversation is short, vague, and sickeningly positive. | The conversation is specific, detailed, and uncovers both strengths and areas for growth. |
| You hang up with no new, useful information. | You hang up with a clear picture of how this person will perform on your team. |
See the difference? One is a formality, the other is a strategic weapon.
We’re going to tear down that ineffective approach and build a new one from the ground up. This is about transforming your reference check process from a liability into your single greatest tool for vetting talent. No more wasting your time on calls that don't reveal a single useful thing. Turns out there’s more than one way to hire elite talent without mortgaging your office ping-pong table.
Let’s get one thing straight: a great reference check starts long before you dial a number. If you’re just grabbing a list of names from the candidate and winging it, you’ve already lost. Preparation is the difference between a polite chat and a genuine intel-gathering mission.
It all begins with managing expectations. Don't just ask for "a few references." That’s how you end up on the phone with their college roommate who once saw them turn in a paper on time. You have to be specific.
You need a 360-degree view, not just the perspective of their favorite work buddy.
Your goal isn't to collect cheerleaders; it's to verify performance. To do that, you need to speak with people who actually managed and worked alongside the candidate day in and day out.
I always insist on getting contacts for:
If a candidate can't produce a former manager, that’s a massive red flag. It doesn’t automatically mean you should pass, but your spidey-senses should be tingling. There needs to be a very, very good reason.
This infographic breaks down the essential prep work that turns a standard call into a fact-finding powerhouse.
Visualizing the steps, from requesting specific contacts to defining core competencies, shows that the real work happens before anyone ever says "hello."
Next up, you absolutely need explicit, written consent from the candidate before you contact anyone. This isn’t just a formality; it’s your legal shield. A simple email confirmation stating, "I give [Your Company Name] permission to contact the references I have provided," is usually enough to cover your bases.
This becomes even more critical for roles where you're hiring across borders. Different countries have different rules, so if you're building a global team, you might want to look into specialized international background check services to ensure you're fully compliant. Don't be a hero; get help if you need it.
Finally, what are you even trying to learn here? Before making any calls, make sure your own house is in order. A good starting point is this Hiring Manager Interview Guide, which can help you tighten up your overall process.
Once that's solid, define the 3-4 core competencies you really need to validate for this specific role.
Is it their ability to manage complex projects? Their technical proficiency in a specific language? Their skill in navigating difficult client conversations? Write them down.
This simple act focuses your questions and stops you from rambling. It’s the key to moving beyond pointless questions and starting to dig for gold. Without this focus, you're just having a chat. With it, you're conducting a proper reference check.
Alright, let's get to the heart of it: the actual conversation. If you ask a reference, "So, what are their strengths?" you pretty much deserve the useless answer you're about to get.
Of course they’re a "hard-working, proactive team player." Their mom probably said the same thing.
You already know the candidate is good at something—that’s why they’re a finalist. Your job now isn't to re-confirm what you already suspect. It’s to uncover how those strengths show up under pressure. The secret? Stop asking hypothetical questions and start demanding stories.
Quit asking what a candidate would do. Ask what they did. This tiny shift in language forces the reference to recall specific events, not just rattle off a list of positive adjectives. It moves the entire conversation from opinion to evidence.
A generic question gets you a generic answer. A behavioral question, on the other hand, gets you a story—complete with conflict, action, and resolution. And tucked away in that story, you'll find the truth. The principles here are identical to crafting good behavioral interview questions, so it’s a skill that pays dividends.
The goal is to get the reference to paint a picture. Vague praise like "She's a great problem-solver" is useless. A detailed story about how she fixed a critical bug at 2 AM with a client screaming down the phone? That's gold.
The right questions will always depend on the role, but the framework is the same every time: Situation + Action + Outcome. You’re simply prompting the reference to provide a concrete example.
Here are a few of my go-to prompts, adapted for different scenarios:
Notice how none of these can be answered with a simple 'yes' or 'no'. They force the reference to dig deep and recount a real-world scenario. While this qualitative feedback is invaluable, you should also consider layering it with objective data from a robust pre-employment skills testing platform to get the full picture.
Sometimes, the most valuable information is found in the silence. A long pause, a nervous laugh, or a sudden shift to vague language after a series of specific questions can tell you more than a direct answer ever could.
When you hear a hedge like, "Well, they could be a bit… passionate at times," that's your cue to dig in.
Don't just let it slide. Follow up with a calm, curious tone: "That's interesting, can you give me an example of a time that passion was a positive, and a time it might have been challenging for the team?" This isn't an interrogation; it's a clarification. You’re trying to understand what "passionate" actually means in a professional context. That's how you get the real story.
You’ve got your killer questions ready to go. Now for the main event: the actual call. The biggest mistake you can make here is sounding like a robot reading from a script.
This isn't a deposition. It’s a conversation with a very specific goal. Your questions are a framework to keep you on track—not a script to be recited word-for-word. If you sound like you’re just going through the motions, the reference will give you equally lazy, rehearsed answers.
First things first: build some rapport. I always kick things off by briefly explaining why I'm calling and what I’m hoping to learn. It can be as simple as this:
"Thanks so much for taking the time. We're really excited about Sarah, and I was hoping you could help me understand how she tackled challenges on your team."
This small step completely transforms the dynamic. You're no longer an investigator grilling a witness; you're a potential future colleague asking for their expert opinion. You’ve made them a partner in the process, not a suspect.
The real insights rarely come from your initial questions. They come from the follow-ups. Listening is 80% of the job here. When a reference gives you a vague, positive answer, that’s your cue to gently dig deeper.
For instance, they might say, "Oh, Alex was fantastic at managing stakeholders."
Your brain should immediately flag that as a fluffy, almost useless statement. Don't just nod and write it down. Jump in with a casual, curious follow-up.
This simple question forces them to move from platitudes to a real story. And the story is where the truth lives.
Your job is to be the friendly but persistent journalist of the conversation. Keep asking "how?" and "why?" until you get a concrete example. If they can't provide one, that silence speaks volumes.
It's a delicate balance, for sure. You need to keep the call focused without making it feel rigid. If the reference starts rambling about the office ping-pong tournament, politely steer them back.
"That sounds fun! And speaking of team dynamics, how did Sarah handle disagreements during high-pressure projects?"
As you wrap up, always end with one final, powerful question: "Is there anything else I should know?" The pause that follows is often the most revealing moment of the entire call.
This conversational, human-centric approach is even more crucial as hiring becomes more distributed. There's a clear global shift toward evaluating remote competencies, forcing employers to adapt. You can learn more about how global trends are shaping reference checks and why a real conversation, not an interrogation, is the only way to accurately gauge these nuanced skills.
The call is over. You’ve hung up the phone, scribbled down some notes, and you're feeling pretty good about the candidate. But hold on—your job isn't done yet. Not by a long shot. Now you have to play detective and figure out what all that feedback actually means.
A glowing review isn't always the green light it seems, and a lukewarm one isn't an automatic deal-breaker. You have to learn to read between the lines. I've found that some of the most positive-sounding phrases are often just polite code for something else entirely.
After you've done a few hundred of these calls, you start to pick up on the patterns. The biggest red flag? Vague praise. It’s often a substitute for specific, positive examples that simply don't exist.
Here are a few classics I’ve heard over the years and what they really mean:
The real trick is to listen for what’s not being said. If a manager can’t give you a single, concrete example of a candidate’s "great communication skills" in action, it’s probably because there aren't any worth mentioning.
Now for the part that keeps most founders up at night: the legal stuff. Staying on the right side of the law is critical, and in this arena, your best friend is consistency. Every single candidate must go through the exact same reference check process. No exceptions.
This isn’t just good practice; it's your shield against discrimination claims. You need to document everything, stick to job-related questions, and never, ever ask about protected characteristics like age, marital status, or religion. Keeping your entire employee selection process standardized is the smartest move you can make.
This consistency should extend to all pre-employment checks, not just references. It's interesting to see how much practices can vary by region. A global survey found that only 62% of North American employers use basic identity verification checks, a number that drops to just 43% in the EMEA region. You can explore more insights on these hiring trends to see how your own process stacks up.
Ultimately, your goal is to make a smart, defensible hiring decision based on solid intel. By decoding the subtext in feedback and maintaining a rock-solid, consistent process, you're not just hiring smarter—you're protecting your business from a world of unnecessary risk.
You’ve got the framework, the questions, and the legal guardrails. But hiring is messy, and weird situations pop up all the time. Let's tackle some of the common curveballs that land on your desk when you're trying to get a real, honest reference check done.
This happens way more than you'd think, and frankly, it's almost always a red flag. When a candidate's list is full of peers or—even worse—friends, it’s a good bet they're trying to hide a rocky relationship with a former boss.
Don’t just roll with it. Politely push back.
You can say something like, "Thanks for these! Our process requires speaking with at least one former direct manager to get a clear picture of performance and management style. Could you provide a contact for that?" Be friendly but firm.
If they still can’t—or won’t—come up with one, that tells you everything you need to know. It’s a classic move to control the narrative. For me, a flat-out refusal to provide a manager's contact is a deal-breaker 99 times out of 100.
First off, take a deep breath. A single lukewarm or even negative reference doesn't automatically sink a great candidate. One person's opinion is just that—one data point, not the whole story. Context is king here.
Was the feedback from a manager five years ago in a totally different industry? Was it from a peer who might have been a rival for a promotion? These things matter.
A single bad reference is a yellow flag. Two bad references saying the same thing? That’s a pattern. That’s a red flag. Your job is to tell the difference.
Your next move is to find out if the feedback is an outlier. Call the next reference. If you get similar, concerning feedback from a second person, you’ve officially got a trend. At that point, it’s fair to give the candidate a chance to briefly address the concern. Just be sure not to reveal your source. Their reaction can be just as telling as the feedback itself.
They definitely have their place, especially if you're hiring at scale. Automated tools are fantastic for speeding things up, eliminating the back-and-forth of scheduling, and getting baseline employment verification done without you lifting a finger. They can save you a ton of administrative headaches.
But here’s the trade-off: they completely lack the nuance of a real conversation.
An automated form can't detect a hesitant pause when you ask about teamwork. It can't ask a spontaneous follow-up question when a reference says something intriguing. And it certainly can't gauge a person's tone. It's collecting data, not gathering intelligence.
The best approach I’ve found is a hybrid model. Use an automated tool like Checkster for initial screening or for your high-volume roles. But for your critical hires—your next VP, your lead engineer—nothing, and I mean nothing, beats picking up the phone and having a direct conversation.
